What’s in a name?

ten years of having my name pronounced wrong

Rahul Misra

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Kamala Harris has often publicly corrected those who get her name wrong

It really started within minutes of my stepping into the UK, at the airport in London. I had just landed after an eight hour flight from India and stood in the queue for 90 minutes before I was finally called up by the immigration officer.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

I nodded. In my best handwriting, I had noted on the form that I was headed to a hotel on Gloucester Road.

If you are familiar with English addresses, you’ll know that they’re often pronounced differently to how they’re spelled. Gloucester is really Glouster. Obviously, I got it wrong.

In return I was subjected to a stare that made me shrink and shrivel to the size of a raisin.

An hour passed, or maybe it was just a minute, before he looked down at my passport. He flipped through it and said my name out loud.

“Rahool Meesra"

I didn’t correct him. I didn’t say a word.

Like I said, that’s when it started. I realized soon enough that the officer wasn’t just taking revenge for my Gloucester mispronunciation. Over the next 10 years, person after person, classmate after classmate, colleague after colleague, all got my name wrong. I have now been in the UK for more than a decade and I can literally count on my fingers the number of people who pronounce my name correctly.

I don’t think it’s a difficult name. Rahul Misra. The tongue doesn’t need to master a Simone Biles quadruple flip to say it. English is a strange language but my name is pronounced exactly like it’s spelt. Still, I am often Raul and I am often Rahool. Sometimes I even am Rauool. If I don’t correct them, it sticks forever. Very rarely do I become the person my parents meant me to be when they gave me this proud name. Very rarely am I simply Rahul.

I have gotten used to it. Sort of. I don’t correct people anymore. It gets tiring, you know? It comes up in dinner conversations when friends of Indian heritage come together and share new ways in which their names have been annihilated. We have all been in work meetings where we introduce ourselves and then spend the next hour biting our tongues as our names are mispronounced back at us.

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Rahul Misra

I write mostly poetry, and some fiction. You may find an essay in my feed once in a while. Connect at http://rmisra.com or me@rmisra.com